od "drive," being always present during the five or six days
that it was in progress, sometimes sitting on the river-bank, sometimes
leaning over the bridge, sometimes reclining against the butt-end of
a huge log, but always chewing tobacco and expectorating to incredible
distances as he criticized and damned impartially all the expedients in
use at the particular moment.

"I want to stay down by the river this afternoon," said Rose. "Ever
so many of the girls will be there, and all my sewing is done up. If
grandpa will leave the horse for me, I'll take the drivers' lunch to
them at noon, and bring the dishes back in time to wash them before
supper."

"I suppose you can go, if the rest do," said her grandmother, "though
it's an awful lazy way of spendin' an afternoon. When I was a girl there
was no such dawdlin' goin' on, I can tell you. Nobody thought o' lookin'
at the river in them days; there was n't time."

"But it's such fun to watch the logs!" Rose exclaimed. "Next to dancing,
the greatest fun in the world."

"'Specially as all the young men in town will be there, watchin', too,"
was the grandmother's reply. "Eben Brooks an' Richard Bean got home
yesterday with their doctors' diplomas in their pockets. Mrs. Brooks
says Eben stood forty-nine in a class o' fifty-five, an' seemed
consid'able proud of him; an' I guess it is the first time he ever stood
anywheres but at the foot. I tell you when these fifty-five new doctors
git scattered over the country there'll be consid'able many folks
keepin' house under ground. Dick Bean's goin' to stop a spell with Rufe
an' Steve Waterman. That'll make one more to play in the river."

"Rufus ain't hardly got his workin' legs on yit," allowed Mr. Wiley,
"but Steve's all right. He's a turrible smart driver, an' turrible
reckless, too. He'll take all the chances there is, though to a man
that's lived on the Kennebec there ain't what can rightly be called any
turrible chances on the Saco."

"He'd better be 'tendin' to his farm," objected Mrs. Wiley.

"His hay is all in," Rose spoke up quickly, "and he only helps on the
river when the farm work is n't pressing. Besides, though it's all play
to him, he earns his two dollars and a half a day."

"He don't keer about the two and a half," said her grandfather. "He jest
can't keep away from the logs. There's some that can't. When I first
moved here from Gard'ner, where the climate never suited me--"

"The climate of any place wh